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Reduce and reuse with pure tap bottles

Louisville Water recently donated 150 bottles to St. Joseph Children’s Home to give to their staff in support of their reduce and reuse efforts.

"This was such a generous donation from Louisville Water, and we are so grateful," said Erin Chism, Human Resources Manager for St. Joseph. "We reached out to Louisville Water as they have been volunteers at our Annual Picnic, are close neighbors, and we thought the pure tap bottles would be perfect for our staff."

Having the staff use reusable bottles is just one effort for the organization to be friendlier to the environment.

"We recently eliminated all styrofoam, any to-go containers, and plastic cups that were being used in our cafeteria and in the residential cottages," explained Chism. "In exchange, employees have the option to bring their own drinking cup or to use the very cool Louisville pure tap bottles® for beverages. We also thought that offering our staff a nice water bottle would help ease the pain of the initial shock of no more styrofoam."

She says the water bottles have been a big hit.

"The staff absolutely love the water bottles," said Chism. "Everyone carries one around with them. One of our team members put a name label on each bottle before we handed them out too, so everyone knows whose is whose."

Chism said that a handful of the staff, called the Green Team, were concerned that the organization did not have many earth-friendly initiatives. In addition to Louisville Water’s bottle donation, the Department of Public Works donated multiple large recycling carts and small orange bins for each room and residential cottage.

"So now we actually have recycling pick-up, rather than a few employees lugging the recycling to their personal bins at home," said Chism. "We also only use reusable plastic compartment trays for any food distributed in the cafeteria and ceramic mugs for hot beverages."

Chism said they also felt that it was important for the children there to know why they recycle and reuse and hopes to use Louisville Water as a resource in that education.

"We talk with the kids about where trash/plastic goes, when it’s thrown away, and how our trash can be made into new things," said Chism. "We hope to continue a relationship with Louisville Water by utilizing them as a resource to educate, motivate, and collaborate."